This volume continues the discussion begun in The Framework of Hemisphere
Defense by describing how the Army contributed to the security of the national
bastion. The discussion naturally divides itself into three sections. The
first describes organization of Army forces for protection of the continental
United States before and during the war, including elaboration of harbor
and air defenses; the Army's role in civilian defense; and protection against
subversion after Pearl Harbor, including a detailed account of the controversial
evacuation of persons of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast. The next
section outlines the Army's preparations for defense of the principal outlying
possessions of Hawaii, Alaska, and the Canal Zone and includes an abbreviated
account of the attack at Pearl Harbor and the Aleutian Islands Campaign,
the only major ground operation to occur in the hemisphere during the war.
The third section explains the creation of Army defenses to secure the
Panama Canal in the south and the similar outpost line erected in the North
Atlantic.

Governmental decisions to participate in the defense of Greenland and
Iceland are explained as the culmination of American defensive measures
by ground and air forces before the United States became a belligerent
in World War II. Throughout, the authors stress the intimate relationship
between American policy and the preservation of a North Atlantic lifeline
to Great Britain, as well as the direct relationship between security of
the Americas and the operations of the Royal Navy. Two other issues merit
special mention. First is the tension between the natural desire to use
a limited Army to defend the hemisphere in the opening days of the war
and

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the need to use those same soldiers to train the large citizen army
needed to pursue the war. Second is the evolution of the nation from a
defensive to an offensive posture, specifically during the Coral Sea, Midway,
and North Africa campaigns in view of the steadily declining threat of
Axis attacks directed at the United States proper.

Key topics:
1. Transition from peacetime Army command and organization to wartime organization
(Chs. II, III).
2. Problems in establishing unity of command among the services for hemisphere
defense (Ch. IV).
3. The defensive problems facing the United States as a continental power
isolated by two oceans, and the relationship between security of the homeland
and offensive action in overseas theaters (Ch. III).
4. Defensive preparations in the outlying possessions of the United States
during 1940 and 1941 (Chs. VII, IX, XII, XIII).
5. Acquisition, manning, and organization of new bases in the Atlantic
and Caribbean in 1940-41 (Chs. XIV, XV).
6. Administrative processes leading to the administration's decision to
evacuate resident enemy aliens and Americans of Japanese ancestry from
the western states (Ch. V).
7. Fighting on the periphery of the American defensive perimeter in 1941
42, including Pearl Harbor, Alaska, and the Panama Canal Zone (Chs. VII,
X, XI, XVI).
8. Establishment of wartime bases in Greenland and Iceland (Chs. XVII,
XVIII, XIX, XX).